Solitude & Food: What a Perfect Holiday

An oft forgotten part of Australia is the island state of Tasmania, to the south of the mainland. It’s only an hour’s flight from Melbourne to Hobart and for me, it’s like being transported to another place and time. Well, technically it is another place, but Tasmania has some of the best preserved historic buildings in Australia. It’s like driving through history…

There is Port Arthur, a former convict penal settlement and now one of Australia’s premier tourist attractions. The setting is marvellous and the trip out to the ‘Isle des Morts’ is fantastic. It is a little island in the bay where all the dead from the penal colony were buried. The position of your burial site was determined by your social status, with the convicts being buried in unmarked graves at the bottom of the island, and the important people being buried under elaborate headstones at the top of the island. One man lived on the island for 10 years, working as gravedigger.